I agree and concur 100%.  Elite amatuers are told to adjust and make hand changes etc etc etc to score.  These guys are the "BEST" in the world and they seem to have trouble doing the same thing.  I simply refuse to believe that a  surface change / drilling change would not of allowed Parker to perform better. Of course maybe he has lost his drive, maybe there are circumstances I am unaware (injury,etc).  I also realize the difference from being 100% to 80% comfortable is $$$$ in the pocket for these guys.

Parker did not look comfortable and his natural aggresiveness was tempered.

Of course all Brunswick balls do the same thing anyways (  wink-wink  )  maybe he was out of answers.

Nod

Edited on 1/10/2005 1:01 PM

Mumzie – No, but it would seem that a fundamentally sound game should remain so. That what produced power and accuracy in the past should today. The game shouldn’t evolve so much that principals that work in one era shouldn’t work in another.

I know we are talking at the highest levels here and that the difference between being simply good and a champ is a strike or two in a 7 game match.

But bowling seems to change so much faster than other sports. Full rollers ruled for a few years, then came plastic, urethane lane finishes, soft rubber, urethane balls, 2-piece balls, resin, dynamic cores, different lane conditioners, different lane patterns, particle balls, etc, etc. Each of these seems to require a different skill set.

While I believe that if Dick Weber (or Earl Anthony, Don Johnson, Mark Roth, etc) had grown up on today’s environment that he would have developed a game that would make him great today why shouldn’t the game he developed then still be good today?

Why should Del Ballard suddenly be made insignificant? Even Pete Weber took several years to revamp his game so that he could come back to being a champion.

While other sports have changed gradually over time due to technology I can’t think of another that has changed as often and dramatically as bowling has.

It makes the sport tough to teach in that what works today might not work 5 years from now.

Sawbones – I know that when the PBA was bought out they tried to use sport shot conditions for a few tournaments but found the scoring to be so low, particularly under the TV lights that they went to modified patterns.

I believe the have Kegel doing research on the patterns and they keep tweaking the patterns. Last years patterns were different than this years patterns. In addition I believe they starting using a different lane conditioner this year.

The PBA has always played with conditions once they took over the lane maintenance duties from the houses in the 1970’s.

Might some of the difference also be attributed to the move away from the traditional mode of qualifying followed by 24-game match play?  In that environment, you did not always have to come out of the gate with all guns blazing but rather could tread water until the lanes opened up a little.

If that premise is accepted, then it is not as much about working on the physical game as adapting to the environment.  

I do also seem to recall that he had some back issues a few years back, and that may have caused some changes that were not really noticable on TV, but could be picked up when you deconstruct the game on computer analysis.